Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/711

 Rh days of blindness, to his clearness of vision at long range when sighting game.

He began going to school at the age of three, and was steadily in his classes for the next half-dozen years. The district school he attended, and the Presbyterian church, of which his parents were members, were of the New England type of that period. The home-spirit was eminently favorable to the growth of individuality, and the nearest household in the neighborhood—where my brother was a great favorite—consisted of very decided characters, well calculated to produce a marked effect on the receptive mind of the boy. It was here that Livingston got his first idea of the classics. When not more than nine years old, he became interested in a copy of Homer's “Iliad,” which the eldest son was studying, and which contained a translation as well as the Greek verse. All his teachers at this period—the clergyman of the parish, an uncle just graduated, and the young men preparing for college who were winter teachers of the common school—helped incline him toward the classics. When about twelve years old, he prevailed upon his father, who then owned a little farm, and was going to Albany to market a small surplus of his crop of grain, to buy him some books. The list he prepared, beginning with those most desired, was a long one, but the proceeds of the sale of grain were only sufficient, after other indispensable purchases were made, to secure the first few volumes, among which were translations of Homer's “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” Virgil's “Æneid,” and Ovid's “Metamorphoses.” These were his earliest possessions, and were made the most of; other books were borrowed from neighboring clergymen or from citizens of Saratoga; and a year or two later, with the proceeds of a patch of potatoes, planted by himself for the purpose, joined with a small contribution from his father, he was enabled to buy a “share” in a circulating library recently established in the vicinity. This library contained three or four hundred standard works in history, biography, poetry, and fiction, with a set of the “Encyclopedia Americana”; but of science there was little or nothing, unless Buffon's “Natural History” might be ranked as science. With his fondness for books, no greater trouble could now come upon him than the disease of the eyes which, prevailing in the family during the winter of 1833-'34, attacked him when he was thirteen and a half years old. He could not let books alone long enough to permit a full recovery. Reckless of results, he persisted in reading whenever it was possible, in spite of protests and warnings. From this time until he was seventeen he was troubled with chronic weakness and frequent inflammations of the eyes, and when unable to read himself others read for him. During this period, the vigorous and abundant literature of the anti-slavery movement found its way into the home, his father being one of the earliest abolitionists in that part of the State. In the wide range of its discussions, the religious, ethical,